Firestorm: Book III of the Wildfire Saga (7 page)

Chad closed his eyes, imagining what it would be like if they didn't have such special blood, if there was no war, if there was no bio-weapon running amok up above.
 

Someone cleared their throat at the hatch to Chad's room and rapped on the open metal door.
 
"Ma'am?
 
Gen. Rykker requests your presence in Ops."

13 disentangled herself from Chad.
 
He was satisfied to see her flick away moisture at the corner of her eye as she straightened her top and nodded at the Marine in the doorway.
 
"I'm on my way."

"Yes, ma'am," said the young Marine, ducking out of the room.

13 looked to Chad.
 
"I have to go.
 
My mission's starting."

"You going to help them take down Reginald?" asked Chad.
 
He placed her knife inside the duffel then changed his mind and slipped the sheath under his belt at the small of his back instead.
 
"I wish there was something I could do to help."

Fire blazed in her eyes for a split second as she gripped his arm.
 
"Survive.
 
The best thing you can do to help defeat them is to survive.
 
Afterward, we will track down the rest of our family and bring justice to all those who've hunted us."

C
HAPTER
8

Calais, France.

Onboard a RailEurope TGV.

V
ASILY
SMILED
AT
HIS
luck as he opened his newspaper.
 
Finding a copy of
Komsomolskaya Pravda
in Paris—even if it was a few days old—was all the proof he needed that his mission had merit.
 
The corner of his mouth twitched up as he nudged the briefcase between his legs for reassurance.
 
The man next to him had no idea he sat so close to such a fortune.
 

A hundred thousand dollars…how many rubles is that?
 
I could walk off this train in London and never come back.
 
The thought quickly vanished from his mind.
 
Doing so would be a death sentence for Mother and Father.
 
He clenched his jaw.
 
Vasily Andropov is no thief—I earn my money.

He skimmed the headlines.
 
The American Flu dominated every category.
 
Fears it would spread across the Atlantic ran rampant through Europe.
 
Muscovite editors lambasted the West and pointed to past heroic Russian efforts that had stopped the spread of historical, yet unnamed contagions.
 
He was pretty sure those unnamed contagions were fictional, but who was he to second-guess the editors of
Pravda
?

The article continued, mocking the flight of rich Europeans to supposed safe havens at the far corners of the earth.
 
Vasily shook his head.
 
Such problems the rich have!
 
No one back home fears a little cough.
 
We have more important things to worry about, like putting away enough food for the winter.

The man next to him muttered something in English and Vasily nodded, offering a half-smile.
 
He wrinkled his nose and frowned, then buried his face in his book.
 
Vasily couldn’t read the title—it was in English—but there was a picture of a US dollar on the cover with a fishhook through it.

Money as bait.
 
Now that is funny!

He stifled a cough with the back of his hand and cast a glance out the window as the bullet train traversed a long curve.
 
The French countryside at sunset was lovely—at least the parts that weren’t blurred by the fantastic speed the train had reached.
 
Vasily had been on a plane only once in his life, but this train seemed to go twice as fast.
 
A cold sweat broke out on his brow as he thought about what might happen should the train derail at such speeds.

He ruffled his newspaper to shake the morbid thought from his mind and settled into his seat.
 
He had less than an hour to London.
 
Plenty of time to read and get caught up on world events.
 
Vasily focused on the largest headline of page 2:
America creates super-flu—releases on own people as test.

Vasily suddenly sneezed, the violence of it surprising himself as much as the passengers around him.
 
He splattered the newspaper with a spray of nastiness. He frowned, while man next to him muttered something louder this time and abruptly left his seat.
 
Vasily lowered the corner of his paper to see a couple across the aisle staring at him as if he’d produced a bomb under his shirt.
 
He smiled and pulled the paper back up to block their view.
 
Heat rose up his neck.

Stay calm.
 
Remember—act normal.
 
Nothing is out of the ordinary.
 
I have to stay calm…I will not collect my fortune if I cause a scene…

A few moments later, a petite conductor led his neighbor back to his seat.
 
She politely asked something in a quiet voice.
 
Vasily couldn’t understand her.
 
He smiled and shrugged.
 

She looked over her shoulder at the other passengers—more of whom now paid attention.
 
The conductor offered an embarrassed smile and tried again in what sounded like German.
 
Vasily shook his head and smiled.
 
She tried French.

“Are you feeling okay,
messier
?
 
Is there anything I can get you?”

Vasily’s face lit up—finally, he could understand her.
 
“Oui, mademoiselle
, I am fine.
 
It is…”

I should be cautious—if the vaccine is secret I better not say anything…
Vasily scrambled for the right word, something to throw off suspicions—he didn’t want to explain the vaccine.

“Allergies.
 
Oui
—I have allergies.”

The polite smile remained plastered on her face, but never reached her eyes.
 
Apparently satisfied there was no medical crisis, she glanced at the other passenger spoke gently to him.
 
The man was not happy, but without any other empty seats, he sat back down.
 
He tried to lean as far as possible away from Vasily toward the aisle.
 

So be it.

Vasily ruffled his paper again and watched the other passenger out of the corner of his eye.
 
The man affected a casual air, but Vasily knew if the train hadn’t been full, he’d have demanded a new seat by now.

 
The next story caught his eye:
Flu in Germany brought back from American peacekeeping mission.
 
Outbreak feared in Berlin.
 
The article continued with descriptions of measures neighboring countries were taking to secure their borders.
 
That meshed with his experience at the Paris train depot.
 
Guards everywhere, long lines, angry travelers.
 
Rumor had it the French planned to seal their borders in the next 24 hours.

I may be on the last train to London.
 
Vasily smiled.
 
His luck still held.
 
A cough broke through his lips.
 
Damn it all, I
am
catching a cold, I can feel it.
 
He ignored the irritated shuffling of the man next to him.
 
Let him be mad.
 
I don’t have the flu.
 
I’m not used to so much traveling, that’s all.

The world out his window faded into a gray and black blur occasionally broken by bars of light.
 
They’d entered the Channel Tunnel.
 
Vasily checked his watch again.
 
Thirty minutes to London.
 
He forced himself to think about what he’d see and where he’d go in the British capital.
 
Anything to take his mind off the millions of tons of water and rock overhead.
 

London.
 
A city as shrouded in history as Moscow itself, powerful and old.
 
London may as well be Shangri-La to a farmer’s son from the outskirts of Kursk.
 
He’d been told there was a sizable Russian immigrant community in London and it was his first stop after the meeting at Onnei’s London office.
 
He checked his watch again.
 
Maybe I will stop there first.
 
I will have time later tonight for some shopping and dinner.
 
It would do me good to eat food from the Motherland.
 
French food is too greasy.
 

He sneezed again and heard someone speak a little too loud in the seat behind him.
 
He knew the other passengers were getting more upset even if he couldn’t understand their words.
 
The thought of so many suspicious eyes him made him wish the train were even faster.
 
Knowing how much cash lay between his feet made him suddenly nervous.
 

The sooner I deliver this briefcase the better.

Vasily coughed again, noticing a faint itch in his chest for the first time.
 
He looked up and frowned—the little conductor moved toward him down aisle again, reassuring passengers on her way.
 

Leave me alone…I feel fine!

C
HAPTER
9

The Swiss Alps.

Chalet Tillcott.

C
OOPER
CREPT
THROUGH
THE
snow toward the chalet.
 
Switchplate's squad waited to breach, stacked up on the exterior doors.
 
Cooper couldn't shake the itch between his shoulder blades as he approached.
 
He took a knee and scanned all around him, looking for a target but found nothing—just a blanket of churned-up snow covering the mountaintop.
 
A dozen bodies–Reginald's homeguard–littered the field, staining the snow red.
 
Three SEALs had been wounded in the brief exchange, but nothing life threatening.
 

The EMP-tipped bunker buster had done its job well.
 
The chalet sat blind and mute.

So why am I hesitating?

He scanned his heads-up-display, hoping to find something to justify his hesitation.
 
Nothing appeared on the screen.
 
Blue dots represented his own squad, surrounding the chalet and closing in on his position.
 
Switchplate's cluster of blue dots had formed up on the opposite side of the chalet, waiting for the signal to breach.
 
He zoomed out to the until he could see the entire mountain.
 

Six outposts had been identified at the base of the mountain.
 
Two were marked by pink triangles, the rest yellow—which meant no activity had been recorded on the drone’s previous pass.
 
Between drones and assets on the ground, all the sites were under surveillance.
 
No transmissions, no traffic, no soldiers, no lights, no nothing–it was like those four outposts had been abandoned.

“
We ready or what?
" asked Switchplate.

Cooper shrugged off his bad feeling.
 
The outposts were empty and the chalet only moments from capture.
 
They had to move, stay on schedule, and take down this guy once and for all.